2014 South Region Breakdown – First Weekend

The Kansas Jayhawks are the No. 2 seed in the South Region and are headed to St. Louis. Here’s the breakdown of the entire South region of teams KU could possibly play, with importance on the teams KU could face in the first weekend first.

Kansas vs. Eastern Kentucky – Friday, March 21st – Approx. 3:10 CST

Last year, Kansas played Western Kentucky in the first round. This year, they’re playing Eastern Kentucky. Funny how things like that work out.

Anyways, Eastern Kentucky is a No. 15 seed and they’re making their eight NCAA tournament appearance and first since 2007.

Conference: Ohio Valley

How’d they make the tournament?: They beat No. 1 seed Belmont, 79-73, on March 8th in Nashville to win the Ohio Valley conference tournament. They are an automatic bid.

Regular season record: 24-9

Kenpom Ranking: 129

Kenpom Offense: 53

Kenpom Defense: 240

RPI: 99

RPI Top 50 record: 0-2

Strength of Schedule: 234

Good wins: Belmont (twice). Belmont did beat North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Round of 32 Potential Match-ups (Sunday, March 23rd):

Stanford:

Stanford is coming out the Pac-12 with a talented team that is battle tested. Nine of their 12 losses are to teams in the RPI top 50 and their 6-6 record against the NCAA tournament field is nothing to scoff at. This is probably the better matchup for KU in the Sunday game.

New Mexico

I truly believe New Mexico will take down Stanford on Friday mainly because New Mexico seems to be under seeded, in my eyes. However, Stanford is battle tested and could easily take down the Lobos. I see New Mexico winning and if they face KU, they could take down the Jayhawks. Embiid was a big key in the first matchup and he’ll most likely not play. Although, if Embiid can go for 10-15 minutes, that might be all the Jayhawks need to get the victory. We’ll see what happens but this game will be won in the trenches.

Conference: Mountain West

How’d they make the tournament?: Automatic bid for beating San Diego State